twas the week before Christmas

I have been slacking off with the blog entries but that is because life at the moment is a tad...well...ordinary. On the fitness front I walked to work twice, ran home once and cycled to and from work twice. I threw in a lunch time run as well, so I've covered a decent mileage without fossil fuel and without sharing the sweat of others on public transport. Plenty of sweat of my own as it is December and that's just the way it is as Christmas approaches in this neck of the woods.

Christmas. I'll skip the whole atheist thing, the bit where I go on about the hypocrisy and commercialism and my disinterest in the birthday (alleged) of a church-trashing Jewish fisherman. After all, it is Christmas. I've shopped a bit for presents but without any verve. Being a northerner - hemisphere - I have difficulty associating thirty degree heat, clear blue skies and ninety-five percent humidity with Christmas. Add to that the extra daylight hours and I am left with few physical triggers for the Pavlovian response that is 'must shop.' There is a damn great tree in Martin Place and a few decorations at work. Shop windows have the requisite fat-bloke-in-red and reindeer iconography. There is a carol service in the Domain. But none of that works on me as I sit, sweating my arse off at seven thirty in the morning.

Maybe on the day I'll get that festive feeling. Though, if previous Christmas day lunches at the in-las are a guide I'll simply get that abdominal pain feeling as the traditional roast with all the trimmings and then some is brought out and the assembled clan attempt suicide by indulgence.

The picture, incidentally, is a retake of an earlier shot. Pop over to Flickr and you'll find them both. Shot one, a black and white because I was feeling arty, was taken on May 24th this year. The one atop this post was taken December 21st. Same cup, the fading leads me to suspect. Maybe I'll snap it again in another seven months...

A brief bit of dog news. After work yesterday we took the boys to Clive Park, our new favourite swiming spot in the Harbour. We drove down as the humidity was cranked up, but the water is only a little over 20 degrees so great for a cooling dip, especially if you live in a fur coat like the dogs. And me. The small beach faces north and that is where the wind was coming from, so there was a bit of chop to the surface and some very small waves. Neither of these things deterred the hounds. Rumpole ran out of steam after a while - steam recovered when a large golden labradour arrived - but Rowlf just kept going. Now we know he has his sea legs we can hurl throw toys, safe in the knowledge that he will retrieve them. He gallops into the water, crashing through waves in the general direction of where the toy is thrown...the waves, small though they are, are plenty large enough to keep the toy in a bobbing up and down in a now-you-se-me-now-you-don't state. He just ploughs on, bringing the to back, dropping it and then looking expectantly and imploringly at you with a 'go on, throw it again' expression on his face. Lesson for th day though...clear the beach of dead fish...there was only one it was well dead and the boys were on it in a stinkin' flash...